


Together We Rise and Fall

by EchoResonance



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, Yullen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 18:30:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5550869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoResonance/pseuds/EchoResonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some lives are full of unlimited opportunities and ripe with second chances. Those lives don't belong to Exorcists, and most especially not to Kanda Yuu or Allen Walker. They are each other's very last chance to save not only others, but themselves as well. They have been graced with a second chance set things right, and to be there for the other the way they silently wish they had been sooner, but that second chance is all they're going to get. Whatever happens to them, it will be for the last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together We Rise and Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 5 for Yullentide: Onsra (to love for the last time)

_ You’re my last chance _ , Kanda doesn’t say, but falls back-to-back with Allen as Akuma surround them.

_ My last chance to do something right _ , he doesn’t tell him, but lunges at the demon preparing to fire at his partner.

There’s a lot he hasn’t said to Allen, and even more he probably never will say, but that doesn’t make any of it less true. From the moment he met the stupid kid to the moment the same stupid kid committed high treason for his sake, so many thoughts have crossed Kanda’s mind that he’s refused to let past his lips. Thoughts of nostalgia, when he was reminded of another young, uppity boy with so much hope. Thoughts of wistfulness, when he allowed himself in a moment of weakness to wish he could have the same thing again. Thoughts of envy, thoughts of pride, thoughts of--in brief times that he denies ever happen--admiration. They’ve piled up, oh how they’ve piled up, and sometimes the weight of all the things he’s left unsaid threaten to crush him

But even that is something he won’t ever tell the Beansprout fighting beside him. He isn’t going to tell Allen Walker that there are dozens of things he wants to say to him, things that for a change aren’t meant solely to piss him off. He isn’t going to tell Allen Walker that he reminds him of another person he loves even now, even after they’ve gone for the last time. He isn’t going to tell Allen Walker that he wishes sometimes that they had been borne into different lives, where maybe they could have met outside of a war, where they could have been something besides soldiers. He isn’t going to tell Allen Walker that he wishes he could have an unlimited number of chances with him. He isn’t going to tell Allen Walker that he has loved and lost, and that to do it again would shatter him entirely. He is not, ever, going to tell Allen Walker that in spite of that, he has found himself loving anyway, and he is absolutely not going to tell Allen Walker that it will be the last time.

When the two of them find themselves standing amongst the rubble that’s left from freeing the Akuma, Kanda turns briefly to look at his partner, who stands panting in the center of the wreckage. His silver hair is falling out of its short ponytail and fluttering in his face. His clothes are tattered, though they were like that before the two of them were ambushed, and his chest is heaving. 

Kanda presses his lips together and looks away, gritting his teeth against the words rising in his throat like bile. He isn’t going to say “good job.” He’s never said it before, and he’s not going to say it now.

“We have to get moving,” Allen says, running a hand over his already disheveled hair.

“Then let’s move instead of wasting time talking about it,” Kanda says gruffly. Allen spares him a disparaging look but says nothing in favor of leading them away from the carnage.

Kanda falls into step at his shoulder, close enough to catch him if he tries to make a break for it, but far enough that he should have been able to avoid the way the back of Allen’s hand brushes his and makes his chest tighten. He clenches his jaw and attempts to discreetly put more distance between them.

He knows now that love isn’t something he can run from or hide from. He recognizes it and accepts it for what it is. But he is going to bear it in silence and secrecy, and no it won’t make him happy, but he’s very used to  _ that  _ and quite frankly it would be unnerving to change that now. He doesn’t have the strength to love freely, doesn’t even truly have the strength to love privately, but at least when left to himself he can pretend otherwise.

A very, very long time ago, or at least that’s how it feels to Kanda, Allen told him something strange. It was before he knew anything of Alma, and Kanda can’t remember what could have possibly brought on such a strange notion, but it’s been stuck in the back of his mind ever since.

_ No matter how much it hurts to lose someone you love, _ he’d said,  _ you can always learn to love again. It’s what makes life bearable. _

He was probably talking about Mana when he said that, but it struck a little too close to home for Kanda all the same. For a long time, he’d convinced himself he didn’t deserve to love, didn’t even deserve friendship, because of his painful and bloody past. From the moment he thought he killed his first love and his only friend, he deemed himself worth none of it. Then, slowly, people started to peer in through the cracks in the walls he built, and one by one, a few have managed to worm their way inside. First it was Tiedoll. Then Marie and Daisya. Lenalee was his first true breakthrough, and then Lavi after her. But it wasn’t until Allen, this short, cursed boy with an incredible knack for stupidity all but knocked a massive hole in his barricades with a wrecking ball that Kanda started to feel himself turn towards the light, just a little bit. Because of Allen, Kanda broke every rule he’d set on himself.

When Kanda killed Alma for a second time, and held them as they crumbled in his arms, he realized that he didn’t feel heavy, like he had before. His heart ached, god, it hurt so terribly he thought he may die just from the pain of it, but at the same time the fulfillment of his promise made him feel incredibly light and free. It was strange, and it was only after the moment had come and gone that he understood why.

He loved Alma Karma, and loves him still, in a way. But at the same time, he’s found someone else to love, someone he treasures greatly even though it’s yet another thing he cannot express out loud. It’s probable that no one will ever know he’s capable of such an emotion at all, and he doesn’t mind it. It doesn’t matter. After Allen, there will be no more. When Allen’s life ends, Kanda’s purpose will have ended with it, and without a purpose he will not go on. He’s only postponed his own death for the sake of someone more important anyway.

No, when Allen Walker dies, Kanda will die as well. This is his last chance to make something, anything, of his life. It’s his last chance to fight, really  _ fight _ for something he believes in, something he’s passionate about. It’s his last chance to love, and have that love mean something.


End file.
